


RPS

by quiet__tiger



Category: Die Hard (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Fanfiction, First Kiss, Humor, M/M, the internet is for porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 12:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10639434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet__tiger/pseuds/quiet__tiger
Summary: John finds stories written about him and Matt. It gets them both thinking.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal Jun. 28th, 2008.

John McClane was bored. He hadn’t had a day off in what felt like months, or maybe even actually was months, not since he was in shape to work after the Fire Sale. But here he was on a typical Tuesday, forced to take a break, and he was lounging restlessly around his apartment.

Even Matt wasn’t around to entertain him; he’d finally found a job and worked a mostly regular week. John wasn’t really sure what he did, just that it was something with computers. Matt had been living with him since the Fire Sale, because his apartment got all blown up and he had nowhere else to go.

It was nice that Matt got a job because now he could chip in for bills. Not that it was an inconvenience to have him around, but it was more convenient now. He was a good roommate overall. Kept to himself, cleaned up, did dishes, and even cooked once in a while.

John found that he and Matt had more in common than it seemed at first, or if not things in common, comfortableness around each other. It was easy being with Matt and having him around. It was certainly better than being alone all the time.

And they learned from each other. Matt was learning self defense, simple martial arts, and how to shoot a firearm while calm. John was learning about computers and the Internet, and how to program the TiVo Matt insisted they get after he made John get satellite TV.

With Matt around, though, John had lost the ability to entertain himself. Finally he decided to just mess around with the variety of new, expensive toys that found their way into his apartment. Finding the remotes to the entertainment area intimidating, John pulled Matt’s laptop computer over from where it sat on the coffee table. Matt had shown him numerous search engines, set up a personal email account for him so he didn’t have to use the one from work, introduced him to networking sites that John had _no_ interest in whatsoever, and showed him where to download music. As if he didn’t already own everything he liked.

Curious about if he and Matt had made the news anywhere recently, as they’d been all the rage after the Fire Sale, John went to the most recent search engine in the history and typed in his and Matt’s names. The first few websites that came up were newspapers and old current event things. Nothing new there. He scrolled towards the bottom of the page.

Ah, there was a new one he didn’t recognize. The title of the article was “Hero Quest,” and... was written by someone named sparkleflower53. What? Were strippers writing news articles these days? And why was it given a rating? And NC-17 at that?

Reading just the first paragraph was enough to confirm that this was no news story. He and Matt had never woken up together in the same bed. They’d never even slept in the same room.

And then, the second paragraph... He’d definitely remember doing _that_ to Matt. What _was_ this?

_Matt climaxed in John’s hand, and John smiled down at him. “Good wake up call?” he asked._

_Matt answered, “The best. Too bad I can’t wake you up the same way.”_

_“You can always tire me out all over again.”_

The hell? That had definitely _not_ happened. The thought of anything like that hadn’t even crossed his mind.

However, mildly repulsed though he was, he couldn’t stop reading. According to the story, Matt gave really good head. But then... John definitely didn’t come like depicted there. And what was with the schmoopy kisses afterwards? Kissing had always been Holly’s idea, not John’s, not right after sex. Hmm.

At the end of the page, John found links to more stories. Then more authors. After a while he realized he was confused and horny. Most of the stories had one inaccuracy after another related to him and his body and his habits, but there were still some disturbingly hot sex scenes. But damn, it was weird reading about himself having sex with his roommate. Then again not all stories had them as roommates. In some they hadn’t talked since the Fire Sale. One had Matt engaged to Lucy briefly. And wasn’t _that_ a weird idea.

He was so engrossed in a particularly well-written and scarily accurate story that he didn’t hear when Matt came home. Didn’t, in fact, notice him until he waved a hand between John’s eyes and the computer screen. “Earth to McClane.” Matt dropped down next to him onto the couch. “Whatever you’re reading must be good. You download a new book or something?”

“Something like that.”

“What?” Matt leaned over him to see the screen, and John pulled the computer farther away from him. “Lemme see.”

Matt snatched the laptop from him, and John told himself he let it go so easily because it was really Matt’s property. Only when Matt’s eyes went wide when he read the screen did he realize he could have just closed the windows he had open. “McClane, you’re reading _porn_?” Matt scrolled down. “About two _guys_?” His eyes flicked rapidly back and forth as he read. “About two guys named Matt and John.” He looked at John sideways. “This is RPS, isn’t it.”

“Huh?” It was bad enough when Matt spoke using actual words. John couldn’t handle acronyms.

“Real Person Slash. It’s like fan fiction but it’s real people.”

“Fan fiction.”

Matt squeezed his eyes shut like he was trying to not let John see how hard he was rolling them. “Fan fiction. Writing stories about TV characters? Or book characters? Whatever, it’s writing stories with other people’s characters. Sometimes the stories are just like an episode of the show. Other times they write relationships about those characters, like Batman and Catwoman. Sometimes they use two guys or two girls, Kirk/Spock. Called slash.” John just stared at him blankly yet encouragingly to get him to keep going. It was always interesting learning about how weird people could be sometimes. “And these people are using real people for their stories. Us.”

“That’s sick.”

“Yeah.”

Matt clicked a few keys. “You sure read a lot of stories.”

John felt his face getting hot and fought the blush back; he didn’t blush, ever. “It was... like a train wreck.” Yeah, that was one of the few things he hadn’t fought a terrorist on, a train. “I didn’t want to read, but I couldn’t stop. I mostly wanted to see how close they got me.”

“And?”

“Some was close. Some was not. Like, stupid stuff, like getting my middle name wrong. Someone spelled my _first_ name wrong. And I’d never do some of the shit they have me doing.”

Matt twitched his head in that way that meant he was thinking hard, but wasn’t letting his thoughts fall out of his mouth in a tumble of words. “You said you ‘mostly’ read for you. Why else did you read?”

Was Matt _grilling_ him? Why? And why wasn’t he answering, just looking off to Matt’s left?

Finally he just said, “I find it all interesting. A lot of the writing was really good.”

Matt clicked backwards through some of the pages. “It’s _porn_.”

“Not all of it. There were a few that were just us hanging out. And in a couple you and I weren’t even in a scene together.”

“That’s less fun. Right?”

“Well, it’s good to have you here.” And reading the stories where he and Matt _weren’t_ together in any way was somehow harder than reading the ones where all they did was have butt sex. The writers just had a way of bringing to the story emotion that seemed to come out of nowhere.

It was unsettling.

“I like being here. Living alone was good, but... You work enough that it’s like being alone, but you’re still here.” Matt smiled at him sideways, and John returned it.

“Yeah.”

A silent moment grew to silent minutes. It wasn’t necessarily awkward, but it seemed to be getting that way. And it shouldn’t, not really. He and Matt got along really well when they weren’t doing something to piss each other off. And they hardly ever did that.

But now John had all these random, weird, disconcerting thoughts running through his head. Like gay sex and Matt and what he meant to him and if Matt was anything in bed like the authors seemed to think he was. Not that John wanted to know, or needed to, but...

He sent a silent prayer to whatever deity looked out for him when Matt reached for one of the remotes and turned on the TV. He let the harsh sounds of music videos for metal bands flow over and through him, drowning out his thoughts.

~*~

Matt sat on the floor of the living room doing his stretches; tonight was another self defense practice session with McClane. He could now afford lessons from someone else, but who the hell else would he trust with his safety more than John McClane?

He was wearing an old pair of McClane’s sweat pants that were apparently too small for McClane but were too big on him, and an old t-shirt that he salvaged from his apartment. The faded black fabric only smelled a little bit like explosions.

There was a tear in the cuff of one leg of the pants; he wondered how that had gotten there, what McClane had been doing. It was difficult a lot of the time to try to piece together the life he must have had before Matt became his roommate. Maybe it was because McClane was in such a different place in his life, or maybe it was because he didn’t seem to have _had_ much of a life.

It was a little scary how well he and McClane got along most of the time, with all their differences and the way in which they had met. But he really liked living with him, sharing his space. And he knew McClane liked having him there, it was pretty obvious in the way he smiled when he probably didn’t realize he was.

And then to come home last week and find him reading slash!

That had completely confused him. First of all, McClane had managed to use his computer without breaking it or giving up. Then he’d kept _reading_. Matt wasn’t a big fan fiction person, but he knew what it was, even knew some of the vocabulary. So he had an idea of what McClane had been reading. And he’d gone back later that night and read some of the stories in detail.

McClane had been right. Some of it was well-written, some of it was inaccurate. And it _was_ weird when the two of them didn’t have any sort of friendly relationship after the Fire Sale. It would mean being alone and being bored and not being snarked at or smirked at or called “kid” which he’d somehow become used to.

Speaking of McClane, where _was_ he? He wasn’t late on their training nights; at least, he’d never been before.

Matt stood and stretched his back, then his arms. Done, he stared at the front door. Nothing.

And no call.

An hour later, he called the precinct and was told that McClane left almost two hours before. Now Matt was scared, not annoyed. And McClane didn’t have a cell phone or anything...

He knew it was stupid to worry, shit happened, maybe there was just a subway issue or something... But then again it was _John McClane_ , the poster child for “shit happens,” and never in a mild way. When shit happened, it _happened_.

His brain finally kicking into gear, he turned on the TV and surfed for the news. Nothing. News, yes, but nothing that could have anything to do with McClane. Theoretically.

Finally the 10 o’clock news came on and the third story, after something about a food recall and then kids being poisoned by more toys from overseas, was about a local domestic dispute turned hostage situation.

McClane was being interviewed by a perky blonde reporter, and Matt finally allowed himself to relax. McClane was okay. He’d just taken the wrong route home at the wrong time and gotten himself involved in saving people.

Matt watched until the end of the story, part of him noting how good McClane looked on camera even with a bandage on his head while the rest of him wondered if the perky blonde reporter would stop hitting on him. He had a feeling McClane got that a lot.

Then he turned on Cartoon Network and pulled his laptop across the coffee table and looked for anything he could find on the situation McClane had found himself in that night.

Two hours later the doorknob jiggled, and Matt jerked his head towards it. In strolled McClane, looking worse for the wear. “Sorry I’m late, kid.”

Matt jumped up to look at the new cut on John’s forehead, invading his personal space to inspect it closely. “What happened? I mean, I saw on the news, but they of course weren’t as specific as people would like them to be.”

McClane rubbed the cut. “Guy threw a beer bottle at me. The guy abusing his wife and kid. I heard the wife yelling out the window as I walked by, tried to help, got hit. Finally talked everyone down and got her and the kid out.”

“You’re amazing.”

“No, kid, I’m lucky.” He cocked his head. “Or really unlucky, depending on how you look at it.”

“Lucky.” Matt stared at McClane. He hadn’t _really_ thought he wouldn’t be coming home that night, but then again he knew all too well that he might not have come home that night. He wasn’t a beat cop anymore, but that didn’t mean he didn’t face danger. Tonight only made that perfectly clear.

He realized McClane was staring back. “It’s good having you here to come home to on nights like this. When things go wrong.”

“Yeah.” Matt swallowed. “I’m glad you came home. I was worried.” Maybe more worried than he really should have been.

“Don’t be. I always make it out.”

“So far.”

The moment stretched on, and Matt could feel something happening. He didn’t know what. But there was something going on that was big.

McClane leaned down and reached one rough hand to cup his cheek to hold him there, then pressed a careful kiss to Matt’s mouth. He pulled back and Matt didn’t like what he saw on McClane’s face.

John McClane wasn’t supposed to look worried.

Fighting his nerves, Matt asked, “What was that for?”

“I’ve had some wake up calls lately. Reading about you and me never seeing each other again made me realize how much I like what we have. And seeing the shit either of us could get into just coming home from work made me realize how much I’d miss you if something happened to you. When that guy was threatening to kill me tonight I just kept wondering... you know.” McClane was looking at him more earnestly than he ever had before.

Matt knew his eyes were wide. He had no idea McClane felt this way, ever thought about things like this. “I’ve been sitting around here for hours wondering if you were okay. I figured you’d be okay, but it’s you, so I figured something had happened...” He shook his head to focus his thoughts. “It would suck if you didn’t come home.”

One side of McClane’s mouth lifted. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

“I, um, read some of those stories. About us.” He swallowed. “I’m glad we’ve become close and not estranged.” He shook his head again; sometimes he sounded too formal even to himself. “I mean. I like you.” And now he sounded like some idiot in a teen movie.

“I like you, too.”

“I guessed that from the kiss.”

“About that...” McClane stopped, clearly wanting Matt to say something so he wouldn’t have to.

“It’s okay. I... I liked it.” Unexpected and a little strange, but he didn’t hate it. Not at all.

Apparently relieved, McClane leaned down again, this time kissing him harder, more aggressively. After a second Matt kissed back. He wasn’t good at it, but he didn’t think that was important right now.

If someone had told him a week ago he’d be kissing McClane and it would be McClane’s idea, he’d have sent for the men in white coats. But now... Now it felt right somehow.

McClane pulled back, breathing hard. “You okay?”

“Confused as hell.”

“Me too.”

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m never the brains of the operation.” He smirked. “And definitely not with you here.”

“Well, muscle is important, too.”

They stood and stared at each other, the moment more tense and stressful than any others recently. But somehow... He wasn’t sure where his thoughts were going.

Matt cocked his head and asked, “Are you sure your brain didn’t just get melted by the porn about us?”

McClane grinned. “I’m not melted.” Then he grew more serious. “I don’t know about porn, sex. I haven’t... gotten that far ahead of myself. I just know I like what we have now, whatever it is. Just you. And not to get way too far ahead of anything, but I’ve never fucked a guy.”

“Me, either. But it can’t be that hard.”

“And the stories give step by step instructions, anyway.” He grinned again, and Matt did, too.

He knew his life had just changed in a huge way, and he was a little apprehensive. But he also knew that it was _right_. The weirdoes posting stories of them online had somehow known what they didn’t, for all Matt’s intelligence and McClane’s instincts.

He shook his head before reaching up to pull McClane down to kiss him again, enjoying the present before the future needed planning. He wasn’t sure if he believed in fate, but if things were meant to be, they’d happen. No need to get worked up about it right now.

Teaching McClane how to use the computer had opened unexpected doors. But Matt hadn’t been expecting life with McClane to be anything like predictable.


End file.
